Search Results for: vox

Where Life is Cheap and Secrets are Plentiful: Vox Day’s A Magic Broken

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Disclosure: I was provided a free copy of this novella for review. You may be familiar with Theo Beale as a blogger at Black Gate. Some of his posts have been controversial, but whether you agree or not, they make for interesting reading. So I was looking forward to seeing how his ideas translated into fiction. He’s given me a chance with A Magic Broken, an e-book novella equivalent to about 50 pages, written under the name Vox Day. It…

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A Reckless and Unwarranted Speculation on the Origin of a Great Science Fiction Story

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Alice (James Tiptree Jr.) Sheldon For many writers, asking them the apparently innocent question, “where do you get your ideas?” is like waving a red flag in front of a bull. (Watch the Harlan Ellison documentary Dreams with Sharp Teeth for a great example; at the very thought of someone posing that question, Ellison goes from zero to apoplexy in 1.2 seconds. I know — Harlan Ellison, but still…) Nevertheless, as a humble reader to whom the mysteries of creative…

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New Treasures: The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume Seven edited by Neil Clarke

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The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume Seven (Night Shade, September 5, 2023). Cover by Thomas Chamberlain-Keen It’s been distressing to watch the havoc the pandemic played with many Year’s Best Science Fiction volumes. The 13th volume of Rich Horton’s The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy, published by Prime Books, was delayed a year and produced in a digital only edition last year, and now that series seems to be dead. Jonathan Strahan’s The Year’s Best Science Fiction…

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Future Treasures: The Wraithbone Phoenix by Alec Worley

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The Wraithbone Phoenix (Black Library, August 30, 2022). Cover uncredited. Black Library’s new Warhammer Crime imprint has caught my eye recently. I heartily enjoy their Warhammer 40K novels — and we’ve covered them at Black Gate fairly extensively over the past 20 years — but there’s only so much bleak far future military SF you can include in your regular diet. Or is there? In the last two years Black Library has branched out with new Warhammer Horror and Warhammer…

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One From the Bucket List: The Year’s Top Robot and AI Stories: Second Annual Collection edited by Allan Kaster

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The Year’s Top Robot and AI Stories: Second Annual Collection (Infinivox, November 21, 2021). Cover by Maurizio Manzieri I’ve been reading and writing about Year’s Best volumes for decades, and I’ve covered a lot of them, including anthologies by Terry Carr, Don Wollheim, Harry Harrison and Brian Aldiss, Gardner Dozois, Jonathan Strahan, Rich Horton, Neil Clarke, and many others. So I hope you can appreciate what a pleasure it was to receive a copy of Allan Kaster’s The Year’s Top…

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System Shutdown

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January 1st Dear Diary, In an attempt to embrace change and personal growth, I’ve decided to challenge myself, and so my next project will be an edgy cyberpunk novel. This will allow me to plumb the darkest depths of cynicism, as well as the steep cliffs of optimism by which one must escape. Accordingly, I have delved into the technology of tomorrow, studying it while it is just a looming threat, and have also fixed on a number of social…

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Vintage Treasures: Legacy by James H. Schmitz

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Legacy by James H. Schmitz (Ace Books, 1979). Cover by Bob Adragna Although I purchased several of his paperbacks in my teens, I didn’t really learn to appreciate the work of James H. Schmitz until I read and reviewed Gardner Dozois’ terrific 1998 anthology The Good Old Stuff: Adventure SF in the Grand Tradition, which contained Schmitz’s story “The Second Night of Summer.” In his intro for that tale Gardner wrote: Although he lacked van Vogt’s paranoid tension and ornately…

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L. Frank Baum’s Oz Series: #1 The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

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If we were to look at the roots of American fantasy, or even world fantasy, the writer L. Frank Baum’s influence looms large in the pre-Tolkien era. The 1939 MGM The Wizard of Oz movie is an indelible part of world culture. Canvas for impactful movie villains and the Wicked Witch of the West tops most people’s lists. The movie is so pervasive in culture that we can forget the source novels, though. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, published in 1900, sold 3…

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Another Childhood Classic Disappoints: Thuvia Maid of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs

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Thuvia of Mars paperback editions (Ace 1962, Ballantine 1969, Four Square 1962). Art by Roy Krenkel, Jr., Bob Abbett, and Roy Carnon During confinement and adjusting to a new job (while writing a new novel!), I’ve been feeling like my bandwidth is restricted. To calm my brain at times, I’ve been rereading books I enjoyed. My reread of the X-Men is well underway (here’s post X in the blog series), and I’ve also relistened to R. Scott Bakker’s Prince of…

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